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Out now in print: the RPG Writer Workshop RuneQuest Adventure Collection! This 124-page softcover book brings together six RuneQuest adventures created by the graduates of the Storytelling Collective's 2022 RPG Writer Workshop's Write Your First Adventure course, with a refreshed layout. Scenarios in this collection include: The White Upon the Hills, by Sacha Gauthier and Reece Dyer. "For many seasons, the White Blight has plagued the hunting grounds on Stael’s Hills. During the Great Hunt, the adventurers encounter the aftermath of a monstrous attack and the origin of the spreading curse. Tracking the monster, they find a magic strike-stone from an ancient hunting legend. If they intend to use it, they must retread the steps of a mysterious hunting god — to bind, slay and cleanse their prey." Died in the Wool, by Braeden Harpool. "In a small highland community in Sartar, a case of missing sheep has the villagers on edge, and a caravan of trolls and their strange beasts has recently arrived. Tensions rise to a boil, and as the investigation unfolds, the only answer to the conflict is revealed: Trollball." A Lamp for Esrola, by Sven Lugar. "Journey into the Troll realms of the Shadow Plateau to retrieve the Tears of the Only Old One! At a celebration to honor the rebuilding of the Temple of Esrola and her Grandson, Fufluns, an opportunity to bring the source of eternal light to the temple is presented to the Adventurers. Are they up to journeying to the Troll-lands around the Shadow Plateau and negotiating or stealing Tear-stones? The Indagos Bull, by Rob Marcus. "It is just before the Earth Temple High Holy Day, and the favourite bull for the blessing ceremony has gone missing! The Earth priestess is worried that the community will be affected. Contains details of the Pavic meat trade, farming in Prax, Hazia effects, and what happens when you tangle with a Hazia Elf." The Lottery, by Robert Stoll. "After weeks on the road with the Ravenhair family trade wagon, you've finally reached the Lunar Empire. Shortly after crossing the Glowline, you enter a village where a local ritual ensnares you in an ancient curse. The fate of your family, two villages, and an entire river valley are all in jeopardy. Can you save them all from a terrifying cult before it's too late?" An Orlanthi Wedding, by Ian Straus. "One of your group's male Orlanthi adventurers is getting married. The scenario's five acts should be interleaved with other adventures over several seasons, and culminate with an unexpected heroquest." If you are interested in writing your first TTRPG adventure, do check out the Write Your First Adventure Workshops at the Storytelling Collective! Chaosium is proud to partner with the Storytelling Collective in this program, which includes dedicated streams for both prospective Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest creators, along with a general stream. See more examples of creations by Write Your First Adventure alumni in these digital bundles at DriveThruRPG. Vale Braeden Harpool (1991 - 2022) This print edition of the RPG Writer Workshop RuneQuest Adventure Collection is dedicated to the memory of Jonstown Compendium creator and RPG Writer Workshop alumnus Braeden Harpool, author of the adventure "Died in the Wool". Braeden died unexpectedly on December 30th 2022. Five copies have been sent to his family, who've told us they cherish that Braeden's creative work has been memorialised in print. They will continue to receive the royalties from sales of his work.

Call of Cthulhu fans, make sure your gamer friends know they've got just over 24 hours to be part of our amazing Humble Bundle. If anyone you know is "Cthulhu curious", now's their chance! $404.00 Value • Pay What You Want • Supporting the World Wildlife Fund • This time it won't be extended! https://www.humblebundle.com/books/call-cthulhu-chaosium-inc-books

Yes, Alex is a big Call of Cthulhu fan. We do plan to release The Macabre Joke in English in due course, but have no release date yet.

-- David Waldron receiving the prize at the awards ceremony in Melbourne, Australia -- Congratulations to Miskatonic Repository creator David Waldron, whose Call of Cthulhu creation William Bailey's Haunted Mansion is a winner at the 2023 Victorian Community History Awards. This commendation for the History Interpretation Award, recognising "projects which use unique formats of historical interpretation", was given in a ceremony in Melbourne, Australia today by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria in conjunction with the Public Record Office Victoria. First presented as a live actual play production at the Ballarat Heritage Festival in May 2023, William Bailey's Haunted Mansion was published as a one-shot adventure on the Miskatonic Repository, Chaosium's platform for independent Call of Cthulhu creators at DriveThruRPG, in October 2023. Set in the turbulent 1890s of the historic city of Ballarat in Victoria's Goldfields, Australia, the scenario explores some of the places, figures and legends in that folklore and the machinations of a real but today largely forgotten cult which operated in western Victoria in the late 19th century; the New Lights or Stephenites, named after their ruthless and charismatic leader Stephen. Chaosium vice president Michael O'Brien said, "William Bailey's Haunted Mansion is a masterclass of showing how you can deftly concoct a (fictional) Cthulhu Mythos tale out of real historical happenings, bringing in known locations, authentic artefacts and documents, and actual people who lived at the time. We congratulate David Waldron and the talented players and musicians who brought the story to life at the gaming table, and have now published the scenario and received recognition with this award." William Bailey's Haunted Mansion is available in PDF and print (POD) formats at DriveThruRPG.

They will go sale very soon, hopefully early next week.

Esteemed horror writer and Mythos creator Brian Lumley, who passed away in early January, was not a player of the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG himself. But he did once have nice things to say about the Call of Cthulhu fans he'd interacted with. This was in the pages of the seminal 1980's Dagon, which played an important and influential role in both the horror gaming and literary scene of the era. Dagon #13 from 1986 was the "Brian Lumley Issue", and in it, as part of a lengthy interview, Dagon editor Carl T. Ford (who in 2017 also sadly left us) asked the question: DAGON: "I would now like to turn to the subject of role-playing games, and in particular, Call of Cthulhu. Have you ever had any role-playing experiences? And do you feel this sort of thing lends itself to Lovecraftian Lore?" BRIAN LUMLEY: "I've never played. From what I've seen of fans of CoC, however, I'd say it must have something. I mean, these are intelligent blokes; mainly young, very switched-on lads. I know several of them poisonally (sic): people like Guy (the Cowled One) Colishaw, and James (the Felpham Foulness) Simmons. When I first met these blokes, I thought: "animal, vegetable, or mineral?" But now that I know them better ... I still wonder! Seriously, it seems to me that the Mythos is admirably suitable. The guys who've contacted me through Dagon, for books, or stories or information, all seem decent, well-educated, nice sorts of blokes. Tentacled, but OK."

No, print and PDF will be released together. The player's book is full color hardcover and the Grey Knight is full color softcover.

To keep things authentic, we're experimenting with vellum. Our team of scribes are dipping their quills as fast as they can to make the release date.

As exclusively revealed yesterday by Dicebreaker, King Arthur Pendragon, the epic fantasy RPG of questing knights considered by late RuneQuest creator Greg Stafford as his “masterpiece”, returns with its first full new edition in nearly two decades this April. The Player's Handbook releases in April, along with The Grey Knight, an updated edition of the classic adventure by Masks of Nyarlathotep creator Larry DiTillio. These April releases will be followed by the Gamemaster's Handbook and the Noble's Handbook later in the year. Other Pendragon titles are in development, including a new, updated edition of the Great Pendragon Campaign, Greg Stafford's acclaimed multi-generational campaign covering eight decades of game time. Considered one of the greatest tabletop roleplaying game designers of all time, Chaosium founder Greg Stafford considered Pendragon his "masterpiece". He had been working on his "Ultimate" version of the game for more than ten years up to his passing in 2018. “As I see it, Pendragon was so far ahead of its time the hobby is just now catching up to Greg’s innovations from nearly 40 years ago, so there really wasn’t much need to change things mechanically in any significant way,” Pendragon line editor David Larkins said to Dicebreaker. For more details about the history of the Pendragon TTRPG, the new edition, and an in-depth interview with David Larkins, see the articles at Dicebreaker: ‘The hobby is only just catching up to what Greg did 40 years ago’: Pendragon 6E, ‘ultimate’ edition of an RPG legend’s masterpiece, reclaims its crown. Exclusive first look at Pendragon 6E’s Player’s Handbook and The Grey Knight, fantasy RPG’s biggest update in almost 20 years Pendragon Player's Handbook cover by Mark Smylie The Grey Knight cover by Loïc Muzy

Today we learned of the sad news of the passing of Brian Lumley (1937–2024). Brian was the recipient of a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association. Coming to the fore with his Cthulhu Mythos fiction in 1971 with The Caller of the Black, published by August Derleth’s Arkham House, Brian went on to write important contributions to the Mythos. Indeed, Brian’s take on Mythos entities like Azathoth and Nyarlathotep were challenging, inventive, and inspirational. Brian’s Dreamlands cycle of novels, beginning with Hero of Dreams (1986) built and expanded upon Lovecraft’s foundational stories with added zest and a dash of swashbuckling. Brian’s creations found their way into the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG, notably in the monstrous Chthonians, Shudde M’ell, and Yibb-Tstll, as well as some fan-favorite tomes of lore like the Cthaat Aquadingen, G’harne Fragments, and Unter Zee Kulten. Brian’s short story “The Running Man,” also graced the pages of the now out-of-print Green and Pleasant Land, a British-based Call of Cthulhu supplement produced under license by Games Workshop in 1987. Brian’s “The Mirror of Nitocris” could also be found in the pages of Imagine magazine’s issue 13—wherein much content was dedicated to the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG. Brian moved away from Lovecraft’s mythos and created his own vampire mythos, starting with the Necroscope (1986) series, which in turn inspired the creation of a Necroscope tabletop roleplaying game in 1995. Thus, Brian’s creations were instrumental in not just one, but in two roleplaying games. In addition to his novels, Brian’s varied and insightful short stories and novellas have graced a legion of anthologies and collections. Somewhat in the vein of Robert E. Howard’s heroes, Brian’s characters tended to be capable and strong, and more likely to laugh rather than faint at the sight of Cthulhu. In my teenage years, as I began my journey delving into the Cthulhu Mythos, I somehow managed to contact and share some correspondence with Brian. Helping me to secure some of his early books, Brian was the consummate gentleman and both a delight and inspiration. I would later go onto meet him at FantasyCon in the UK in the late 1980s, where, in person, he was equally a delight to encounter. His stories, like “Return of the Deep Ones,” The Burrowers Beneath, and “De Marginy’s Clock” made a deep impression on my young mind and, in a pre-internet world, his encouragement and stories inspired me to write both fiction and roleplaying scenarios. Thanks Brian. Rest well. Mike Mason 29 January 2024

Happy 50th birthday Dungeons and Dragons from Chaosium! Chaosium's own first TTRPG RuneQuest (1978) was dedicated to D&D creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, "who first opened Pandora's Box". Everyone playing, creating and working in tabletop roleplaying games today appreciates that audacious first step which has now grown into a hobby enjoyed by millions. And with Dungeons & Dragons celebrating its 50th birthday this month we thought we'd retell the tale of the first-ever copy of the game sold. Fifty years ago that copy was bought for none other than Greg Stafford, who would go on to found Chaosium the following year. In the words of Greg himself... The First Dungeons & Dragons Game Ever Sold "I'd like to share one tale about D&D, from way back when. After high school I used to work for Bergamot Brass Works, a belt buckle company out of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Real hippie job. I'd take buckles, hitchhike around the country and sell them to shops. After a while, though, I moved to California and stopped doing that. My friend and business partner, Jeff Platt, remained in the Midwest, selling buckles (we were called Buckle-itis). Through the various circumstances described elsewhere, I'd decided to publish my first board game, White Bear & Red Moon, on my own. As I was finishing up work on it, I got a package in the mail from my old partner Jeff. His cover letter said, “I was picking up my catalogues from the printer the other day and there was this guy waiting for his stuff. I asked what it was, and he said it was a fantasy game. I said, ‘Hey, my buddy in California is doing one too! Can I buy one from ya?'" Of course the guy was happy to, and so Jeff sent me this strange little box called Dungeons & Dragons. Later on I wondered, “Heck, I wonder if that was the first one ever sold?" Well, I asked Gary Gygax if he remembered this incident and he did, and confirmed that it was the first one ever sold. Man, do I ever now wish that I'd not lent it to my DM! I never got it back!"

"Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave..." Graveyards of Arkham premieres on twitch Wednesday, February 7th 6:30pm ET/9:30pm PT, running weekly for six weeks. With Keeper Mark Meer, and investigators Lucia Versprille, Patrick Logan, Noura Ibrahim, and Josephine McAdam. How to Watch Watch Graveyards of Arkham on twitch.tv/chaosiuminc - follow us there and you'll get notifications and reminders about us going live! VOD to follow weekly on the Chaosium YouTube channel.

Thanks to the incredible response to the Call of Cthulhu campaign, Humble Bundle has extended the offer for one more week! Just $25 gets you over $400 worth of digital Call of Cthulhu books - the starter set, the core rules, and years worth of gaming fun! Jump on board while you can and see why Call of Cthulhu has been the #1 horror TTRPG for over 40 years. $408.00 Value • Pay What You Want • Supporting the World Wildlife Fund https://www.humblebundle.com/books/call-cthulhu-chaosium-inc-books

Thanks to the incredible response to the Call of Cthulhu campaign, Humble Bundle has extended the offer for one more week! Just $25 gets you over $400 worth of digital Call of Cthulhu books - the starter set, the core rules, and years worth of gaming fun! Jump on board while you can and see why Call of Cthulhu has been the #1 horror TTRPG for over 40 years. $408.00 Value • Pay What You Want • Supporting the World Wildlife Fund https://www.humblebundle.com/books/call-cthulhu-chaosium-inc-books

The time will soon come to unveil the secrets of the haunted city... Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is coming in February.

Patrick Logan is Doctor Archibald Desmond.

Rick's new 'Out of the Suitcase' post outlines how the current Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine originally stems from 16 pages of introductory material explaining the wonderful world of role-playing games, a mere 44 years ago... https://www.chaosium.com/blogout-of-the-suitcase-48-good-old-burly-bob-a-basic-history-of-basic-roleplaying/

Alone Against the Static is our latest Call of Cthulhu solo adventure. It is designed to be played alone - no Keeper needed. But here our Stream of Chaos team show you how it can actually be played using a traditional Keeper and Investigators format. The same approach can be used with all our solo adventures! Get your copy of Alone Against the Static today! Full colour hardcover: $29.99 (price includes PDF) PDF: $14.99 PDF also available at DriveThruRPG.

Lucia Versprille is Theadore Holt.

Josephine McAdam is Detective Vic Mason.

It's another brilliant cover reveal from our friends Aconyte Books! The Shadow on the Glass is the first Cthulhu by Gaslight novel in a series of brand new fiction Aconyte is creating and publishing in collaboration with Chaosium. Following the cover reveal of Cath Lauria's Secrets and Sacrifices, the first Regency Cthulhu novel, to be released on April 2nd 2024, comes Jonathan L. Hoawrd's The Shadow on the Glass, to be released on June 2nd 2024. London, 1891. Elizabeth Whittle and William Grant enjoy scalping London’s bourgeoise, taking on the persona of grand spiritist Cerulia Trent and her agent to connect the living and the dead. When a detective arrives, sniffing out fraud with a scientifically minded spiritualist society, the duo decides to take one last job before escaping to the continent. However, their final séance ends horrifically… and soon Lizzie isn’t Lizzie anymore. William, desperate to banish whatever monster they summoned, is soon embroiled in an electrifying eldritch mystery where he makes a deal with the devil to save his friend and stop an even greater evil from transforming the known world. For more details and to preorder see the Aconyte Books announcement.

Graveyards of Arkham is coming soon.... The incomparable Mark Meer will be your Keeper of Arcane Lore... Noura Ibrahim is Big Betty Briggs.

Bridgett returns! Chaosium's Bridgett Jeffries, last seen on these shores for PAX AUS in 2022, joins Call of Cthulhu creative director Mike Mason and bestselling RuneQuest creator Andrew Logan Montgomery as an International Guest of Honour at Chaosium Con Australia in June. In addition to her community coordinator role at Chaosium, Bridgett is a co-host at the Miskatonic University Podcast, appears in numerous actual play podcasts and streams, and is a bestselling Call of Cthulhu creator at the Miskatonic Repository. She is also a vocal advocate for community content creators, and runs her own horror gaming club, Symphony Entertainment Gaming & Arts. Says Bridgett: "I am absolutely thrilled to reconnect with my Chaosium family and Chaosium fans Down Under. I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to attend Chaosium Con Down Under! Great vibe, amazing people, good games, spectacular food, and epic coffee!? It’s Chaosium Con Down Under, baby! Let’s GO!!!" Tickets for Chaosium Con Australia go on sale soon! It's going to be an epic weekend parts mythic, epic, heroic and horrific, with Chaosium's favourite games on offer, plus local and international guests, panels, an auction, and more! Here's the details - save the date!: Dates: June 8th-9th 2024 (King's Birthday Weekend) Location: Moonee Valley Racing Club, Melbourne VIC Australia. Convention Hotel:The Sebel Moonee Ponds (a short walk from the venue) Bridgett (center) at the community creators meet-up at PAX AUS (Melbourne, Australia) last October

Let's run with this a bit further: having turned to growing spuds in desperation during the Great Winter*, the Sun Domers (re)discover that the Cradle River valley is a perfect place to grow them. They even improve the soil! Theological implications abound. They did once grow potatoes here long ago, the first count brought them with him from their ancestral lands in Dragon Pass. But, some time during the Solitude of Testing, knowledge of their cultivation was lost. Potatoes became haram (after all, Yelmalio rune lords are forbidden to eat them, see Sun County p.22). Perhaps in one terrible year of famine the last of the seed potatoes were eaten, leading to recriminations and anathemas. It was probably a greedy Light Son that ate the last-ever baked spud, leading to rune lords being religiously sanctioned. In future, potatoes would be reserved as a food for the common folk, the light servants piously intone. Except they didn't have any of the precious taters left. Eventually, like riding horses, "potatoes" would just be a memory. But everyone knew Yelmalio forbade his most favoured (light) sons to touch them, so they must be bad (whatever they are). And then their world was opened up again. Horses came with Dorasar, and potatoes came with the Lunars and their Teelo Norri poor bread. *scenario hook: during the Great Winter the Sun Domers send a crack party (of player characters) to steal a sack of seed potatoes from the Teelo Norri Poorhouse in Pavis. Plot twist: the Sisters are happy to turn a blind eye to such theft of their moon tubers, seeing it as proselytising by stealth...

The 'Unnatural Selections' series is our regular round up of notable Chaosium reviews worth a look. With the news that the forthcoming core rules for our new edition of Pendragon was voted one of ENWorld readers' Most Anticipated RPGS of 2024, here's what reviewers and readers have been saying about the Pendragon Starter Set. It's out now: start your knight's Journey with the Pendragon Starter Set today! "An electric experience on the table.... Even as a starter set, Chaosium’s latest incarnation of Greg Stafford’s love affair with Arthurian legend delivers on player’s expectations." — Dicebreaker. "5 Stars - This is how all Starter Sets should be done!" — Roberto M. (customer review). "Definitely recommended." — Really Dicey (video review). "5 Stars - Wow. An utter and complete triumph! Like the other Starter Sets that they have produced, it is a subset of the upcoming complete rules set. A subset that has been specifically designed to introduce new people to the hobby of tabletop roleplaying in Arthurian England. The teaching, as always, is innovative, and the graphic design is marvelous. An amazing product that comes at a bargain price! Highly recommended!" — Scott S. (customer review). “Really cool. You have an adventure to play yourself, adventures to share with your friends, and plenty of tools and mechanics to start your own original adventures...” — The Gaming Table (video review). "5 Stars - This will surprise no one, but once again Chaosium have treated us with a gorgeous, affordable and utterly satisfying starter set. The SoloQuest is beautifully written. The layout of the books and pregens is a feast for the eyes without losing readability even for those of us with dimming eyesight. Truly the layout, graphic design and typography is at least on par with Runequest, which I hold with the highest esteem. Bravo, I say! Thank you for bringing this gem into our paws." — Manu (customer review). "5 Stars - Abundant material, beautifully illustrated and produced." — Gregory M. (customer review). “A lovely thing to have and I’m excited to see all that 6th Edition has to offer… if this as accurate a taste of the writing and production values of 6th Edition as the Cthulhu and RuneQuest sets are of their respective games, the new edition is going to be an absolute treat when it emerges.” — Refereeing & Reflection. Pendragon Starter Set Box Set - $29.99 - price includes PDF PDF - $14.99 DriveThruRPG PDF - $14.99 Roll20 All maps, art, multi-sided tokens, and character sheets fully integrated and ready for the virtual tabletop - $14.99 Cover art by Mark Smylie